


10 Things about Albus Potter's Dad

by Pie (potteresque_ire)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child - Thorne & Rowling
Genre: Book: Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Gen, Spoilers for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-26
Updated: 2016-06-26
Packaged: 2018-07-18 07:42:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7305727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/potteresque_ire/pseuds/Pie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>10 things about Harry Potter as his son Albus grows up and gets ready for the world. Set in the years before the Epilogue and the events in Harry Potter & the Cursed Child.</p>
            </blockquote>





	10 Things about Albus Potter's Dad

**Author's Note:**

> *POTENTIAL CURSED CHILD SPOILERS!* I wrote this ficlet based on the spoilers from Harry Potter and the Cursed Child in June 2016, without having watched the actual play or read the script book. Only minor spoilers were incorporated. I'm really looking forward to reading about the father-son arc between Harry and Al in the play! Dreaming up the details of a story from its reviews/synopses (and comparing it with the actual work afterwards) has always been a strange hobby of mine :).

1.

Sometimes, Harry wondered if he’d started off Al’s life on the wrong foot. It was after a brutal Auror mission and he was desperate for the one thing, the one person who’d remind him of humanity and all the good things that came with it. As he panted on top of Ginny, still half-dressed in his blood-stained Auror robe and she in her pajama top, he uttered the first word he’d said to her in over a week. “Sorry”.

Ginny smiled, shook her head and kissed him. “Now go shower.” She ghosted her fingers along the deep laceration on his cheek. “I’ll get the salves ready.”

Nine months later, Al was born. 

  


2\. 

On their family trips to Diagon, Harry always had Al while Ginny had James and Lily. Ginny never had any trouble letting James and Lily stray a bit and peer into the shop windows, confident that they would come back to her afterwards. Harry never managed to let go of Al’s hand.

  


3.

The first time Harry had to let go was because Al had shaken him off. A reporter had suddenly appeared in front of them and fired her camera at Al. Al grabbed Harry sleeve and cowered behind him, and Harry got so angry that he shouted at the reporter for five minutes straight and Confringo’ed the camera lamp. It was after the reporter apologized with a smirk —the whole Diagon was watching—that Harry realized the grasp on his sleeve was gone. He looked back and found Al clutching onto Ginny’s blouse and crying his heart out.

To this day, Harry wanted to think it was the reporter and the explosion that had driven Al away, but he knew, deep down, it was his yelling that’d done it.

  


4.

But Al still held on to Harry afterwards. As Harry watched his son bowing lower and lower at every stare cast at them, he wondered if Al felt that he had no other choices. Just before Christmas that year, Harry accepted the Head of MLE job he’d declined so many times before. Maybe, he thought, his temper would calm with fieldwork behind him. He would get hurt less too, would get to spend the evening with his family everyday.

And he would be wrong on all counts.

  


5.

While Harry could take down a Dark wizard in minutes, it took him hours to go through a scroll on Wizarding Britain security loopholes. He found himself bringing work home, and on bad weeks going to the Ministry on Saturday to catch up. His only consolation was Al always wanted to go with him. Being small like Harry’d used to be, his son would squeeze in the space between Harry and the desk and read, while Harry would stretch his arms far out to work on his quill and parchment. Harry got many backaches from holding that position for too long, but he wouldn’t trade those quiet hours for anything.

  


6.

Silence was a luxury at home. Like other children, James and Lily played, argued and fought, then joined forces and pleaded and sweet-talked their parents into getting what they wanted. But Al rarely contributed to the noise, and Harry sometimes wished he did because when Al wanted something, he went on hunger strikes instead, pushing his plate away defiantly at every meal until his parents—specifically, Harry—yielded. Harry couldn’t stand the thought of his children being hungry and he wondered if Al had figured that out.

Then one night, Ginny sat down with Harry and told him, in no uncertain terms, that _he_ must stop. Parents had to stand on an united front, she said, and Harry’s caving in only encouraged Al’s behavior.

Harry remembered crystal clear that evening he finally managed to steel himself. They’re having rice pilaf for dinner and Al had pushed his dish off the table. Ginny, calm but stern, asked Al to clean up the mess—there wouldn’t be a single piece of rice left on the floor afterwards—and Al looked up at Harry then, expecting his dad to defend him like he’d always had: suggest a compromise that would end the fight, perhaps, or at least, make a wave of his wand to Banish the food. When Harry took a breath and responded with “Do what your mom said”, there was so much hurt in the eyes that stared back that…

  


7.

That night, Harry had his first nightmare in almost a decade. The context of the dream was lost to him. All he remembered was finding himself in the cupboard in No. 4 Privet Drive again, picking off a spider on his leg and when he looked up at the broken mirror on the wall, staring back at him was not himself but Al, with that hurt in his eyes.

  


8\. 

Those nightmares would visit more often, until there’s always a glass and a jug of water in the bedroom. Harry should have no reason to worry. His children had made it to upper primary in the Muggle school across town. James and Lily were busy making friends and slacking off school work, which _'won’t be useful at Hogwarts anyway'_. Meanwhile, Al—that’s his official Muggle name for Albus stood out too much—was getting top marks. He loved being around Muggles because they never stared at him, but at the same time, he never mentioned making friends at school. When Harry and Ginny talked to his teacher, she was surprised and told them that Al’s only close friend had just moved to Australia. When they asked Al about his friend afterwards, Al just shrugged and whispered that he would lose his friends when he entered Hogwarts anyway.

In Al’s own words, it's _'better now than later'_.

  


9\. 

James and Lily were ecstatic the day they’re done with Muggle school. Al only asked his parents to call him Albus from that day on and showed no interest in his Hogwarts acceptance letter. Reckoning it was a case of nerves, Harry went on a mission to tell Al as many nice stories about Hogwarts daily life as he could over the summer, some of which he made up on the fly. He promised Al would love Hogwarts and make many friends like Harry had. He assured Al that Hogwarts would be his second home, peaceful and free of the dangers that’d plagued Harry as a student. Above all, he told Al that after a month or so, nobody would ogle at him anymore because then he’d be just another first year in a boring student robe….

  


10\. 

Al seemed more reassured as September 1st approached. They shopped for school supplies on Diagon and while Al was too old to hold on to Harry anymore, he gave Harry’s hand a squeeze before entering Ollivander’s. A week later, he boarded the train on Platform 9 ¾, not knowing that Harry hadn’t sleep the night before, or the night before that…

Not knowing that Harry really, really just wanted his son to be happy.

  
  
  
  



End file.
